Choices
by procrastin8or951
Summary: Written for the prompt over at hoodie-time: After Purgatory Dean has trouble making choices about the simplest things - choosing what to wear, what to eat, what to drink. On hunts he's fine, lightning-fast and decisive, but when they're in a gas station staring at rows of candy, he freezes. At first Sam is annoyed but then he figures out what's going on and helps.


**Choices**

**Summary: **Written for the prompt over at hoodie-time: _I want more of that teeeeeeny snippet we saw in Show of Dean staring at the snacks in the machine. After Purgatory he has trouble making choices about the simplest things - choosing what to wear, what to eat, what to drink... on hunts he's fine, lightning-fast and decisive, but when they're in a gas station staring at rows upon rows of candy or whatnot, he freezes, loses all ability to choose. At first Sam is annoyed but then he figures out what's going on and helps._

* * *

This Walmart was very possibly larger than Purgatory. Dean couldn't see the back wall of it from where he stood just inside the door while Sam, prissy little bitch that he was, actually ran one of those sanitizing wipes over the handles of the basket as though they hadn't both been elbow-deep in a vampire blood just last night. This Walmart also did not have a river or any other convenient landmarks with which to navigate. All the aisles looked the same from here and Dean didn't want to get lost in here. He wanted to just leave, but Sam was tugging on his elbow, trying to pull him into the labyrinth. Dean toyed with the idea of pulling out his knife, making notches in the displays so he'd know where he'd already been.

"What do you want to get?" Sam was asking him, and Dean shrugged, not even bothering to meet his eyes.

"C'mon, Dean," Sam insisted, like Dean was being purposely difficult by honestly not giving a fuck. "You're too skinny, man. You've barely been eating. There's got to be something you want."

Dean shrugged again because he knew it would piss Sam off, and maybe it would be enough for Sam to say "fine!" and stomp out so they could forget about this whole notion.

"Dean."

Dean forced himself to look at Sam. "I don't know." It felt like an admission.

Sam sighed, loudly and pointedly. "Let's just do the thing where we go down all the aisles. You can put anything in the basket you want, no questions asked, okay?"

"Sure, Sammy," Dean said absently, trailing along behind him toward the first aisle. Sam walked slowly, like he was giving Dean time to look at things. And Dean looked. A whole aisle of bread. By his count, 7 shelves that spanned the length of the aisle, all packed with bread. If he laid each loaf of bread end to end, he could probably make a trail of bread all the way around this stupid Walmart. Or Purgatory. Or both. He caught himself wondering if there was an "around" Purgatory.

"Do you want to get some bread? Make sandwiches?" Sam finally prompted, breaking him out of his supposing about the perimeter of a dimension.

Dean looked at the bread again. Did he want bread? He liked sandwiches, but if he said he wanted them, he'd have to choose one of these loaves of bread to take home. He'd have to choose what to put on the bread. Meat. Cheese. Vegetables. Condiments. Or maybe peanut butter? But mostly the bread. Bread was so bland. It didn't taste like anything but there are all these types and somehow they were different and probably one was better and he couldn't fathom figuring out which. He knew which gun to use for werewolves and which knives were best for vampires; he knew when to shoot and when to wait. Because those i_mattered_./i This was just bread.

"Let's come back to this," Sam finally said, tugging on his elbow again, so Dean trudged along after him to the next aisle. Pasta and boxed foods.

He used to make macaroni and cheese for them all the time when they were young, before Sam left. But he couldn't remember whether they liked it or it was just cheap. He noticed the brand he used to buy, but he didn't know if that would still be the right one.

"Do you like macaroni and cheese?" he asked Sam, dragging his eyes away from the eighteen types he could see, trying to narrow it down.

"Do you?" Sam countered. "I don't care what we get, Dean. You just have to get something."

Dean looked at the macaroni again. How different can all of these be, anyway? It was pasta and cheese. They came together in a box, which was a bonus because it was one less decision he has to make. But he'd have to get butter and milk, and there are other types of those too. And he still didn't remember if he even likes macaroni or not.

"We have a new credit card; you don't have to worry about the price." God, Dean hadn't even looked at the price as a factor, but he was now, and that was just one more factor to consider. He froze.

"Anything, Dean." Dean frowned and shook his head, trying to remember. Maybe he could get plain pasta and...do what with it? He'd have to find something to put on it. Red sauce or white or maybe just butter or cheese and now he was back to macaroni and cheese.

"I don't think you like macaroni and cheese," Sam finally said and walked to the next aisle. This time, he didn't pull Dean along with him, but Dean followed him anyway.

Cereal. Hundreds of boxes all different colours, in rickety lines down both sides of the aisle. Cereal was easy and all he'd have to choose next would be milk. He could do cereal. But he looked at the all the flavours: the chocolate ones and the rice ones and the corn ones and some are frosted and some aren't, and there's wheat and fruit.

"Would you just pick one?" Sam said, clearly frustrated.

Sam didn't want to be here. Dean knew that. There was no better way to say "I don't want to stand in Walmart and choose cereal with you" than finding a nice girl and shacking up instead of looking for your missing brother. Sam was already pissed off today, every day, so Dean grabbed the first box he could reach, forcing himself not to look at the label. Because Sam was pissed off, he knew, because this was ridiculous. Dean i_knew/i_ it was ridiculous but he couldn't figure it out. He spent a year where every decision was life or death, and in the face of that, it was hard to believe there was a correct choice between Cocoa Pebbles and Rice Krispies.

"Not that one," Sam said and wrinkled his nose, and Dean looked at the box in his hands to find it was Raisin Bran. He looked at Sam and then put the box back on the shelf. So there was a right answer.

He looked back at Sam. "I don't know. I just… I don't know."

Sam looked at him for a long moment, assessing, and somehow the anger seemed to melt away and Sam's worried face took up residence. Dean looked away, back at the cereal.

"Do you…not remember what you like?" Sam asked carefully, and Dean shook his head jerkily.

"It's not…I just. It doesn't matter, Sam. The cereal. It doesn't matter." Dean didn't know how to explain this to Sam, how every time he had to decide what to eat or wear or do, he just froze. He didn't know how to explain it without sounding like a girl and making Sam hate him even more.

Sam nodded at him thoughtfully, and steered Dean out of the aisle. Dean thought they were leaving, that Sam was fed up with this whole mess, but instead Sam pushed him into the bread aisle. He reached up and grabbed a loaf of wheat bread and held it out to Dean.

"You like sandwiches. Remember when we fried that ham with the toy buzzer and you ate like ten sandwiches a day? This was the kind of bread you had. Remember?" Dean looked at the label, smelled the bread, and he did remember, the sweet taste of wheat on his tongue, mixed with the saltiness of the ham. He put the bread in the basket and Sam smiled at him.

Sam dragged him through the rest of the aisles that same way. "You like to try the local beers because they're cheap and they're good," "remember when you brought that whole bag of peanut m&ms to the woods when we were hunting that wendigo?" and "Hostess fruit pies aren't really pie, but they're pretty good and sometimes you used to hide them in your duffle so I wouldn't know you ate them." They filled up the whole basket with things Dean slowly remembered that he liked, and a couple he remembered that Sam did.

It was easier after that. Dean still thought it was ridiculous when he would freeze, when he couldn't remember how he used to do something or why, when there wasn't a clear path. But somehow, Sam didn't find it ridiculous at all. And now that he was attuned to it, he went out of his way to fix it. Instead of staring at his razor for twenty minutes every morning, he looked at the post-it note Sam put on the mirror telling him whether or not today is a day to shave, until the day he finally did the right thing without looking. He drew the line at Sam picking out his clothes, though. Sam told him about the type of whiskey he liked and the girls he used to pick up. And when Sam tries to convince Dean that he likes salad and Dean knows immediately that it's bullshit, then Dean knows things are finally the way they should be.

It came back, over time, Sam reminding him how to make the little choices that peppered their lives, reminding him how things that were less than life or death still mattered. The more stories Sam told, the more the last year melted away – Dean's time in Purgatory, Sam's time with Amelia. It wasn't so much the big things like choosing to hunt. It was the little ones like choosing the bed closest to the door and getting fries because Sam liked to steal them and sometimes buying coffee that was more milk than coffee because Sam was a big girl. It was the things that made them Sam and Dean, Dean and Sam, and the more Dean remembered those, the more it became just them, a continuation of the way their lives had always been. It took a little while, but Dean finally remembered. Maybe not all of the little things, but he remembered what they meant. He remembered the choice he always made: Sam. It was choosing Sam and Sam choosing him, it was choosing to always be Sam and Dean.

**End**


End file.
